Alex Hodges, Campus Carrier Arts & Living Editor
A variety of eco-friendly groups and organizations from on and off Berry’s campus set up tables in the Krannert Ballroom on Friday to hold the New Year’s Eco Fair, which was presented by Berry’s Students Against Violating the Earth (SAVE).
Among the groups represented at the fair were the Coosa River Basin Initiative (CRBI), Berry Farms, Agricultural Biodiversity Conservation Initiatives (ABC), Canterbury Club, the Vegetarian and Vegan Society and the Berry College Green Team.
Assistant Professor in Environmental Science and SAVE Adviser Zachary Taylor had a display that showed students about the environmental science program and what the almost 50 majors get to do within their program and community.
“We take some class trips to the ECO Center and water treatment facilities in Rome, and we have an ACE course with the CRBI,” Taylor said.
ACE, or Academic Community Engagement courses are classes that challenge students to engage in critical reflections as they pursue opportunities to apply academic knowledge in diverse community settings.
Ashley Ray, 15C and the new outreach coordinator for the CRBI, attended the Eco Fair to tell students about how to get involved with the many different things that are done through and with the CRBI.
“It’s really easy to get involved with our different volunteer opportunities,” Ray said. “All of our future events like river clean-ups and even our paddle trips can be found on our website.”
Ray encouraged students and community members to sign up for the Georgia Adopt-A-Stream program, which is a good way to get involved at the local level with testing bodies of water and logging data into the Georgia Adopt-A-Stream online database.
Each group’s table had information about the things the group does in the community and how students can get involved with helping out. The Green Team representatives, sophomores Annie Deitz and Jacob Pritchett, were able to get a general idea of how many students are interested in having recycling available in their dorms.
“It will also, hopefully, be possible to check out drying racks for clothes from RAs,” Pritchett said.
The drying racks will allow students to save energy used by the machine dryers, and will keep the laundry rooms from accumulating traffic, as Pritchett noted.
Senior Maggie Christensen, president of SAVE, was glad to see so many people present at the Eco Fair.
Christensen said that the event would not have been possible without fellow SAVE member Margaret Ashton, a sophomore.
Ashton did a lot of the planning and groundwork for the event herself.
Agreeing with Christensen, Ashton was also surprised by how many people attended the fair, and she estimated that close to 100 people, including both students and faculty, were in attendance throughout the two-hour fair.
“I’m hoping that this will become an annual event,” Ashton said.